Milwaukee woman charged, accused of stealing from the Cudahy Police Department

MILWAUKEE -- 39-year-old Melissa Mueller of Milwaukee now faces two charges -- one count of theft (embezzlement) and one count of misconduct in public office. Mueller was under suspicion for allegedly stealing from the Cudahy Police Department by taking cash paid in satisfaction of parking tickets, and failing to properly deposit said funds with the department.

A District Attorney's Office detective launched an investigation, which revealed "numerous instances of suspicious activity involving Mueller, including criminal activity observed on surveillance video at the Cudahy Police Department's lobby desk."

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Mueller was seen failing to make the required entry of the parking payment into the department's computer system, which would have caused the cash register's drawer to open, and would have changed the status of the ticket from unpaid to paid.

Melissa Mueller

Instead of making the computer entry, Mueller was seen manually opening the cash register's drawer and placing the money inside. Mueller was then seen feigning the payment endorsement on the department's copy of the ticket by manually pulling the ticket through the machine.

A properly paid and recorded ticket would have been endorsed as paid by the computer's printer.

According to the criminal complaint, Mueller resigned from her employment on August 8th. On August 9th, Mueller was taken into custody.